pw13

There's no reason why a balanced schedule would "lean towards one division." We've had a balanced schedule for 36 years (apart from two US expansion seasons). It's not suddenly broken and in need of fixing.

A 10th team would at least mean teams from both divisions play the other division more than their own division -- whereas now that's just true of the East Division. As a fan, I want to see every team in my building once a season, and if I were an owner, I would want to see the Roughriders (and their thousands of fans) in my building once a season.

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PTBO Dave

There's no reason why a balanced schedule would "lean towards one division." We've had a balanced schedule for 36 years (apart from two US expansion seasons). It's not suddenly broken and in need of fixing.

A 10th team would at least mean teams from both divisions play the other division more than their own division -- whereas now that's just true of the East Division. As a fan, I want to see every team in my building once a season, and if I were an owner, I would want to see the Roughriders (and their thousands of fans) in my building once a season.

The question is whether the season ticket holders who want to see every team every year outnumber the season ticket holders who want to see division rivals more than once a year.

Regarding hosting the Riders, they seem to have a much larger impact on attendance for the West teams than for the East teams. If I'm an owner of a West team, I sure don't want to lose an extra home date vs the Riders. And if I'm, say, the Argos, I don't want to lose an extra home date vs the Ticats.

Regarding the scheduling, I believe it's only truly been balanced the past few seasons. It has been interlocking for decades, but not truly balanced, at least not when there were uneven divisions.

A tenth team would allow for teams to play 3 games vs their division rivals, 1 game vs each team from the other division, with 1 leftover, which could be scheduled a variety of ways. Some season ticket holders (and team owners) would much prefer this scenario to the home-and-away vs each team scenario.

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Hank01

There's no reason why a balanced schedule would "lean towards one division." We've had a balanced schedule for 36 years (apart from two US expansion seasons). It's not suddenly broken and in need of fixing.

I think the reasoning is when the extra games played against division opponents disappear and the East is just so awful in terms of their record over their west counterparts it would no longer make sense to reward teams with terrible records home field advantage it makes the regular season a joke . You cannot have a regular season games appear worthless .

It's also quite evident after the last two years that the Grey Cup Champs with their pitiful records are getting a much easier path to the Grey Cup . The optics of what we are declaring champions looks like a low standard to reach . Being a Redblack based fan I was ecstatic that we won in 2016 but I wish we won with the 12-6 record the year before the 8-9-1 record was not a championship team record . Now if they won on the road like they should have instead of a cheap bye and won on the road it would have been a much better story about how the Grey Cup was won that year . That goes for the Argos too they did not win legitimately they should have played on the road to get to the finals . If they did that the story and legitimacy of their championship would withstand criticism .

Unless the games are played significantly unbalanced against division opponents the current format cannot exist with a home and home against every team . The absurdity for fans to see a 6- 12 team make the playoffs and maybe have home field advantage is a great way to kill interest in the league .

The whole idea of the regular season is to seed the playoffs . They play to win the Grey Cup and how they get there is very important .

This east / west nonsense with a 9 team league is hold over to a different era of train travel . This is no way to run a professional league in 2018 .

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MY NEW HERO JORDAN PETERSON FOR PRIME MINISTER

argos0906

Long time lurker here but first time poster.Interesting topic.I like the idea of playing more game between rivals, Hamilton & Toronto is a great rival. If the Argos can get the Ticats in their building 2 or 3 times a season it puts fans in the stands. The Argos need the Ticats and the fans they bring to the stadium. Replacing the Ticats with say the Esks, Bombers or Lions doesn't help attendance.Look at the rivalries in the NFL conferences with teams like the Vikings and Packers or Bills/Pats.

As for the talk about 10 teams? forget it guys, I don't care what Ambrosie is talking about we can't put 24,000 fans in the stands in Halifax, there are not enough CFL fans in this region. The region and province will never approve a CFL sized stadium. Forget the idea of building a cheap stadium too with temp stands and benches, fans aren't going to pay good money to sit on metal benches. Just read that OSEG in Ottawa is not making money yet, and they have the luxury suites and box seats and sell the $11 beers.Down here not many people are going to buy the expensive seats and beers.

With the 9 teams keep the format the way it is, it works good.

An interesting thing about this is that although the Argos only played the Ticats at home last year once, the opener, there were 4 games with higher attendance that weren't against Hamilton. 5 if you count the playoff game. The Edmonton game was only a few hundred short than the Hamilton game. So Hamilton isn't necessarily the be-all-end-all of Argo attendance, although both Hamilton fans coming in and Argo fans being increasingly interested in the rivalry game does help

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narles

I do not believe that there should be any changes to the format until a 10th team is added.

At that time I would like to see top 3 teams in each division and then the next two best records. This would give 2 semi-finals in each division so over all there would be two additional playoff games.

I know that this means only 2 teams miss the playoffs but that might translate into more bums in seats for the bottom teams still fighting for a playoff spot at the end of the season. It would be rare that the playoff teams were all know with weeks yet to play.

As well, while the regular season does determine the playoff position, it does not always determine the best teams at the specific point in time, the beginning of the playoffs. A team may tank for the first half, get it's act together towards the end of the season and be playing very competitive ball. Not always but possible

I would have the playoffs as follows:

Semis:The top team in the league host 1 game and gets to select the opponent from the 7th/8th team. While the top teams no longer have a bye, they can select the opponent they best match up against so a bit of an advantage earned by finishing first.

The top team in the other division hosts the 7th or 8th place team depending on which opponenet the top team picked.

The 2nd place team in each division hosts the 3rd place team.

Finals: The highest ranked team in the division hosts the winner of the other semi in their division

Grey-CupThe winners of each division play each other at the Grey-Cup site.

Gornaldatron

With 10 teams we can eliminate the cross over.Hopefully stay at 6 teams that make playoffs.

balanced schedule seems the easiest but with that you may lean towards just one division.Playoff: With Divisions Teams 1-3 One division Teams 1-6

Unbalanced:Play each team in division 3x: 12 gamesPlay each team in other division 1x: 5 games1 game left: I would suggest instead of 4 games within division, play 1vs1, 2v2 etc from standings of previous year.So:3 games against each division team1 game against each team from other division1 weighted game based on previous year standings.

Playoffs 1-3 each division.

We already have teams playing each other 3x now and we already have teams playing each other 4 times due to pre-season.

Nice, this is exactly what I have been saying! My only change is that pre-season would be inter-divisional so there isn't an abundance of one opponent in one stadium (see Montreal at Ottawa three times in 2018.). In that set up, there would be 10 scheduled home games with two same-division teams visiting twice and one inter-divisional opponent not making a visit. It beats the NFL where inter-conference teams visit each other every eight years!

Since it looks like we'll reach 10 teams in a few years, I don't think we should change the current playoff structure. Otherwise I agree with OP's post.

brihind88

With 10 teams we can eliminate the cross over.Hopefully stay at 6 teams that make playoffs.

balanced schedule seems the easiest but with that you may lean towards just one division.Playoff: With Divisions Teams 1-3 One division Teams 1-6

Unbalanced:Play each team in division 3x: 12 gamesPlay each team in other division 1x: 5 games1 game left: I would suggest instead of 4 games within division, play 1vs1, 2v2 etc from standings of previous year.So:3 games against each division team1 game against each team from other division1 weighted game based on previous year standings.

Playoffs 1-3 each division.

We already have teams playing each other 3x now and we already have teams playing each other 4 times due to pre-season.

OK, why would we eliminate the cross over just because there is 10 teams ?

The cross over format has nothing to do with the number of teams 9 or 10.

IF Halifax gets in in 2020, they will most likely go 0 - 18.

The 4th place team should still get in ahead of a 3rd place with a lower record.

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Mightygoose

In the age of the salary cap, new teams can becomes completive pretty quick. Ottawa lost allot of close games in year 1 and look what happened shortly there after. Never mind what the Vegas Golden Knights are doing this year

Saying that, I would be open to phasing out the crossover until after the Schooners third year of play or the season after they make the playoffs for the first time. Whatever happens first. Keep the playoff field at 6 teams.

PTBO Dave

With 10 teams we can eliminate the cross over.Hopefully stay at 6 teams that make playoffs.

balanced schedule seems the easiest but with that you may lean towards just one division.Playoff: With Divisions Teams 1-3 One division Teams 1-6

Unbalanced:Play each team in division 3x: 12 gamesPlay each team in other division 1x: 5 games1 game left: I would suggest instead of 4 games within division, play 1vs1, 2v2 etc from standings of previous year.So:3 games against each division team1 game against each team from other division1 weighted game based on previous year standings.

Playoffs 1-3 each division.

We already have teams playing each other 3x now and we already have teams playing each other 4 times due to pre-season.

OK, why would we eliminate the cross over just because there is 10 teams ?

The cross over format has nothing to do with the number of teams 9 or 10.

IF Halifax gets in in 2020, they will most likely go 0 - 18.

The 4th place team should still get in ahead of a 3rd place with a lower record.

To me it would depend on the way the scheduling is set up.

If they continue to treat the regular season as if there are no divisions, then yeah keep the wildcard crossover (or just seed 1-6 based on that undivided regular season schedule).

However, if they schedule so that teams play 2/3rds of their games against their own division, then do away with the wildcard spot and just seed the top 3 of each division.

And I agree we should keep it to only 6 teams in the playoffs . . . unless at some point the league expands to 12 teams, and then maybe go to 8 teams.

argonutII

When the 10th team comes in you have to have a balance schedule playing each team home and away.It get's tiring when you play the same team 3-4 times per year and more.We all remember when we had 8 teams, it was 5 times per year with some teams.

I AT believe the records show attendance wise that the best draws East or West are against their own division rivals.